Similia similibus curentur --- let likes be cured by likes

The ancient belief, that like is cured by like, has appeared in myth and legend as
well as medicine throughout the centuries. Anthropologists have described its
functions in relatively undeveloped societies, and a prominent example in legend
is in Wagners Tristan and Isoldeonly a touch of the spear that wounded
Tristan can heal him. Similia similibus curentur is the conceptual basis for
homeopathy, which is often defined as the art of curing by administering minute
amounts of remedies that produce effects in a healthy person similar to the
patients symptoms. Historians of homeopathy point out that Hippocrates
practiced ancient homeopathy, that it was written about in 4th Century B.D Greece,
and that there are references to it in Medieval medical texts. An early one is a
1658 Geneva edition of one of Paracelsus (1490-1541) works in which the words
similia similibus curentur are in the margin of a page.
Until the dawn of rationalism during the fifth century BC, illnesses were thought to be visited on
human beings by external, supernatural causes (a view that is still widely held in primitive
societies). Those with diseases had offended the gods, or were the victims of a spell on the part
of an ill-wisher or of the work of a malevolent demon. Healing could take place only if the gods
were placated or the spell removed and the practice of medicine was an occult art, sacred to
priests and witch doctors.
The early Greek thinkers began to see that no supernatural causes were necessary to explain the
nature of human beings and the existence of disease. Hippocrates, the early Greek physician and
'father of medicine' developed the theory, practice and study of medicine into both an art and a
science and he and members of his school were the authors of many works on the subject. In an
attempt to explain human health and sickness in natural rather than supernatural terms, they
adopted the philosophers' theory of the four elements, which were present in everything - earth,
air, fire and water. Corresponding to these, they theorized, were the four bodily humors: blood,
phlegm, black bile and yellow bile, and an imbalance in these humors made itself manifest by
disease. The art of the physician lay in restoring balance.
The Hippocratic way of medicine was followed throughout the ancient world, but approaches to
medicine in the west began to change with the growth of Christianity. In the first century AD
Erotian compiled a glossary of Hippocratic terms, and the famous physician and theorist of the
second century, Galen, still considered his work to be of great importance. However, he differed
from Hippocrates in many ways. While Hippocrates believed that the physician helped the body to
heal itself, Galen believed in applying contrary remedies to force out disease, and in the use of
numerous medications. Galen dominated medicine throughout the whole of medieval Christianity
-so much so that to go against his teaching amounted to heresy -and medicine itself became
increasingly dominated by dogma and superstition.
Religion preached that the human body was vile and worthless in comparison to the spirit and this
led to its being held in contempt from a medical point of view also. Once again, disease came to
be thought of as something that was visited from on high, and was seen as a sign of God's
displeasure or a burden to be borne. The body itself, let alone the patient as a person, was of no
interest to the physician -and instead the bodily excretions were examined for an insight into the
nature of the disease. The Greek idea of the four bodily humors led to an increasing practice of
blood-letting, in order to 'rebalance' the humors, and the production of pus, thought to be a
necessary part of healing, was stimulated by re-opening and re-infecting wounds. Curing, which,
in its Latin origins, meant caring, now meant driving out disease with violent treatment.
At the end of the long medieval period, the Renaissance encouraged scientific study, as well as a
renewal of interest in classical learning.

As a system of vitalistic healing, homeopathy was named and brought into

prominence by the German Physician Dr. Samuel Christian Friedrich

Hahnemann in 1796. It emphasized the importance of both hygiene and a
healthful diet along with giving very small, graduated doses of drugs to promote
healing. The growth of homeopathy, which reached its height of popularity in the
middle decades of the 19th century, is attributable to frustration with the traditional
medicine of the era that often relied mainly on bleeding and purging to cure by
reducing the noxious disease agents in the body and also to the influence of
the Enlightenment and its profound questioning of dogma and tradition.
At the time of its introduction, homeopathy certainly was a radical breakaway from the
way in which medicine had been practiced in Europe for hundreds of years. This had culminated
in an orthodoxy which advocated the use of leeches, cupping (using cups to draw the blood to the
surface) and frequent blood-letting for almost any disease, together with strong cathartics
(purgative medications), emetics (medications to cause vomiting) and other powerful medications
of vegetable and mineral origin, often dispensed in extremely high doses and complex mixtures.
Treatment could kill the patient as well as the disease.

Hahnemann was born at Meissen in Saxony in 1755, and before age 10,
his father, who believed in the principles of the Enlightenment, insisted on his
studying thinking and thought: and emphasized the necessity to question all
existing precepts and dogma. Hahnemann studied medicine at both the
University of Leipzig and the University of Vienna, and practiced in Leipzig from
1789 to 1821. While translating Cullens Materia Medica into German in 1790 and
also by personally taking cinchona bark, he learned that in a healthy person,
quinine could produce malaria-like symptoms, that the results of taking quinine
were somewhat similar to those of the disease it was intended to cure. That
finding led to his development of the law of similars and the view that diseases
should be treated by small doses of the drugs that would produce symptoms
similar to those they were to ameliorate. In 1796, he advanced his theory in C.f.
Huflands Journal, and in 1800 developed it further by outlining the doctrine of
potentization or dynamization, which held that very much smaller doses of drugs
than were being used were curative.
There was the tradition that Hahnemann inherited when he qualifieded as a physician in 1779. In
practice, he quickly saw that such treatments as blood-letting weakened the body's powers of
recovery and had convincing theoretical basis, while the multiple use of strong medications, often
again without theoretical or empirical justification, caused bodily harm. He therefore abandoned
the practice of medicine for fear, he said, of actually causing injury, and took to working as a
translator.
The new theoretical approach to therapy, advocated by Hahnemann's contemporary John Brown
(1735-88), was that disease persisted through lack of stimulation, and that only 'heroic' doses of
medications could stimulate the body back to health; Hahnemann's ideas are in complete
opposition to this. Medications or remedies, should be used gently to stimulate the restorative
forces of nature, and without provoking harmful side-effects which cause ultimate injury. The
smallest possible doses should be given at the most widely spaced intervals possible, and of only
one medication at a time, so that the patient's system is not overwhelmed by complexity.
The word 'homeopathy', invented by Hahnemann to describe his system of medicine, is derived
from the Greek for 'similar suffering' (homois pathos). The theory that underlies it is that
substances which would cause symptoms of disease in a healthy person will cure a person who
already exhibits the same symptoms. It came about because one of the substances referred to
Peruvian bark (Cinchona officinalis), which is the source of quinine, was used for the treatment of

malaria (then known as intermittent fever). Cullen said the substance worked 'because it was
bitter', but Hahnemann was dissatisfied with this account and decided to test the bark on himself.
Meeting his expectations, the symptoms of the fever occurred. Like could cure like. This was a
part of Hippocrates' teaching and sprang from the notion that symptoms could be an indication
that the body was struggling to overthrow a disease so it would be helped if the symptoms were
encouraged. Hippocrates had been translated in Latin as saying 'Similia similibus curantur', or
'Likes are cured by likes'. Interestingly Hahnemann, a skillful linguist, slightly reformulated this to
say' Similia similibus curentur' or 'Let likes be cured by likes'.

In his Organon der rationellen Heilkunst, Hahnemann presented the system

of medicine that he named homeopathy, to indicate similarity in contrast to
allopathy, which he also named in order to signify the difference between the
medication and the patients symptoms. In addition to like cures like, other
major concepts of homeopathy are that the symptoms of an illness represent the
bodys attempts to return to health; therefore the homeopathic physicians aim is
to promote the further development of symptoms in order to accelerate the
bodys self-cure. A fundamental tenet of homeopathy is the belief in the efficacy
of minute doses of drugs, for example, tinctures in sixth, hundredth, or even
thousandth dilutions. The curative power of a drug is proved by giving healthy
persons gradually increasing doses until symptoms develop. (A clinical trial of
yesteryear?). The goal of homeopathic medicine is health, being free of physical
and emotional symptoms, whereas the goal of traditional allopathic medicine
usually is the reduction or elimination of symptoms.
Homeopathy was brought to the United States by Hahnemanns pupil, the
German physician, Constantine Hering (1800-1880), who is considered the
father of American homeopathy. Three of Hahnemanns maxims were named
Herings laws at the insistence of Dr. James Tyler Kent (1849-1916) who played
a leading role in refining and popularizing homeopathy in the USA. They
continue to be basic principles of vitalist medicine and many gestalt therapies
and are recognized today by acupuncturists. The three are:
1)
A true cure takes place from within to without and away from the
more important organs toward those of lesser importance as can be seen when a
patients mental and general symptoms are the first to lessen after proper
treatment begins even though they may have temporarily seemed worse as a
result of the primary action of the remedy;
2)
A true cure takes place from above to below inasmuch as the brain
is the essential organ of the body, and as the relief of symptoms moves down
through the abdomen and the lower extremities it is following the age-old
Direction of Cure:
3)
The vital force heals the symptoms in the reverse chronological
order of their development; thus, the last symptoms to heal are those that were
first to appear.
Wundts three-dimensional theory, published his three-dimensional theory of feelings in 1896, --theorized that, unlike the jnd's of sensation, feelings flipped into their opposites along the
dimensions of pleasantness/unpleasantness, strain/relaxation, and excitement/calm.

there is an argument-game that functions like the dynamics of both homeopathy and Wundt's

psychology. I.e.:

_____________________________
| All statements in this box are false |
| ____________________________|

The sentence demonstrates the homeopathic principle of self negating identity. Not only "likes
displace likes" but self negates self.

(It is the phenomenon of destruction/transformation that haunts all intentional action. When an
idea is acted upon, neither the idea is "realised" nor does the individual's self conception
correspond or appear recognizable by the self , such that ultimately there appears to be a
disconnect between the outcome and the original motives. Sartre's notion that action identifies
existential action is a peculiar omission of haunted labor. AKA "inspiration")
now look what happens when you include another statement

_____________________________
| All statements in this box are false |
| _God exists. __________________|

We have no certainty about the truth of the first statement but we can say that in order for the
second statement to be true --- it must be false. And in order for it to be false the first statement
must be true.
In other words:
If you accept the premise of the first statement, you reject it as false. Which means the second
sentence is true.